Parrikar Trolled, Let’s Have Trolling Audit, Offline & Online

Disclaimer:- I feel, trolling in any form e.g. vulgar, foul language, obscene comments, aggressive threatening, sexual and gender specific personal assaults are highly objectionable, condemnable and unjustifiable. I don’t support such acts on online as well as offline platforms.

The sole objective of this article is to expose trolling that occurred (and still continued) on various online/offline platforms, thrashing, abusing and demonizing particular ideology and organizations.

Latest victim of trolling is India’s defense minister Manohar Parrikar. He came under heavy fire from TV studios of Parliament for statement which he never made. He made general statement about anti national rhetoric, but expert twist masters and self-styled custodians of India’s liberalism and free speech exploited the opportunity to grilled Parrikar on secularism. Fortunately he is used to person for such attacks and bravely defended himself in Parliament.

Another incidence occurred this week, which shamelessly attacked RSS conglomerate under the guise of Kids Trafficking, which is actually a educational drive. 

But when I came across English weekly's kids trafficking report and watched Rajya Sabha proceedings, I decided to make audit of trolling in India since 1947.

Let's have look at it.

Few months ago, during Live TV show, a senior English TV channel anchor asked veteran BJP leader and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, whether aggressive trolling on social media by BJP supporters will ever stop? And, will BJP leaders issue statements/ advisory appealing those involved in trolling to stop it? BJP leader advised the anchor and other victims of trolling to ignore or digest it. The answer itself was not digestible to these TV channel anchors.

The trolling is certainly not new phenomenon anywhere in the world. But, now a days, fundamental difference is that, modes of trolling has changed from offline platforms such as leaflets, pamphlets, newspapers and magazines to vast swathes of social media platforms and comments pages of e-Editions of newspapers and magazines.

With explosion of social media platforms and its ever-growing user base as well as influence, trolling has become widespread, followed by minimum reaction time. Also it has surpassed traditional trolling techniques by completely destroying monopoly of trolls.

Trolling In India:-

In India, trolling was monopoly of few intellectuals, especially Leftist leaning intellectuals, Leftist journalists, authors and media personalities. They used to create nonexistent issues to troll, lambast, thrash, curse and criticize India’s Hindutva groups and indigenous ideologies. Let’s us shed light on trolling by leftist intellectuals since 1947.

Trolling after Gandhi ji’s murder:- In 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead by Marathi youth Nathuram Godse. During his childhood, he attended RSS shakha, but later distanced himself from RSS citing RSS incompatibility in dealing with Muslims. But still on 4 February 1948 Nehru government banned RSS for its so called involvement in Gandhi assassination. On 11 July 1949, Government of India lifted ban on RSS after failing to gather evidences of its involvement in Gandhi murder. To lift the ban, Nehru government told then RSS chief Shri Guruji to express faith on Indian constitution, to express respect for national flag and to draft constitution for RSS.

The RSS was banned for its so called involvement in Gandhi murder and Nehru government lifted the ban on RSS after assurance of expressing faith on Indian Constitution! In all, it was so ridiculous exercise, which many Congress leaders believed that it helped RSS growth rather than stopping it.

Later, on November 21^st 1966, a Commission of Inquiry named as Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur Commission of Inquiry has been set up to unearth conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi. The report was made public by Indian Home Ministry in the 1970.  As per Justice Kapur Commission report, the "RSS as organization were not responsible either directly or indirectly, for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and it has not been logically proved that the accused were ever members of the RSS.

First, Nehru government lifted ban on RSS for not able to prove its role in murder and then Justice Kapur Commission categorically said that RSS was not involved in Gandhi assassination. But still in the year 2016; after long 68 years of Gandhi murder, good chunk of journalists, writers, authors and political leaders used to hurl abuse at RSS and other Hindu groups for its role in Gandhi murder. It is most shameless act of trolling in modern India. While trolling RSS in connection with Gandhi murder, these trolls conveniently ignored findings of Nehru government and Justice Kapur Commission report.

Same phenomenon is described by veteran journalist Arun Shourie, he said- For our friends, Commission of inquiry credible only if it is useful in proving their prototype allegations!

No one is lagging behind in trolling RSS in Gandhi murder case. And still creating hue and cry for being trolled online!

Trolling after Jhabua nuns gang rape case:- In Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district 4 nuns were gang raped by tribal youths in the year 1998. Then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh coined it as communal act and concocted meaning of his statement was Hindutva outfits rapes 4 nuns. State Police arrested some 24 tribal youths in connection with nuns’ gang rape case out of that 12 were tribal Christians. Police concluded that fierce rivalry between two groups of same village led to retributory attack on nuns for the reason that they took stand in favor of another group. Interestingly both groups consisted of Hindus and Christians.

But Indian intellectuals and Indian media were on forefront in terming the gang rape case as Hindutva assault on Christian nuns. They trolled Hindu outfits with such fervor that media ethics and journalistic code of conduct proved ultimate victim. For their own convenience, they continued to quote MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh as their valuable source of information to coin Hindu groups as main culprit in gang rape case. No one took the pain to visit the place where incidence occurred.

Till the date, these media trolls continue to refer Jhabua Nuns gang rape case whenever they need to refer Hindutva terror.

Trolling after Graham Staines lynching:- On 23^rd  January 1999 Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines, along with his two sons Philip & Timothy, was burnt to alive by a unknown gang members at Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district in Odisha. State Police arrested local leader Dara Singh for killing Graham Staines. It took great time for state police and then Justice Wadhwa Commission of Inquiry set up by to reach to the conclusion about lynching of Christian missionary. But the tools and techniques of investigation available with Indian media and intellectuals were so accurate, speedy, efficient and sophisticated that they declared Dara Singh as Bajrang Dal leader and lynching was pre planned conspiracy to wipe out missionaries from tribal belts of Odisha.

Dara Singh himself told in a statement to state police that he was enraged due to aggressive proselytization activities by Staines and Co. and particularly due to verbal abuse and insult of Hindu deities by Christian missionaries. He clearly denied being associated with any Hindu outfit on multiple occasions. But Hindutva trolling was at its peak and the trolls were not in mood to pardon Hindu groups for crime which they never committed!

These trolls painted Graham Staines as humanitarian missionary without any sort of animosity with local tribal. But fortunately Justice Wadhwa Commission exposed their lie by ordering Australian Missionary Society to produce monthly issues of missionary magazine “Tidings” which used to publish Graham and Gladys Staines regular dispatches send from Odisha. The missionary society didn’t make it available to Wadhawa Commission fearing expose of their lie, so Commission made it available by other means. The issues of “Tidings” left Indian trolls red faced and exposed. As humanitarian image of Staines couple was teared apart in “Tidings”. In each and every Tidings issue, there were reports sent by Staines couple, narrating fierce opposition to missionary activities by local tribal. There were hundreds of incidences of violent clashes of missionaries with local tribal, which were aggrieved was aggressive evangelization activities of missionaries under Staines leadership. There were mentions of police intervening in summer camp fearing local backlash.

At the end, Justice Wadhava Commission concluded that Dara Singh was self-styled tribal leader without any affiliation with existing Hindu organizations.

But still, these trolls continued to thrash, abuse and troll Hindutva groups and particularly Bajrang Dal- VHP for murder of Staines. Their logic is clear- Though Hindutva groups were not involved in murder, their ideology created congenial atmosphere for such anti- Christian acts! What a joke!

Trolling after Godhra train burning:- On February 29^th 2002, a train carrying Hindu Karsewaks returning from Ayodhya burnt down at Godhra railway station in Gujrat killing 59 innocent Hindu Karsewaks. The incidence sparked violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims all over Gujrat. About thousand people died from both communities in the riot which is collectively called as Godhra riots. Then Modi government was accused of supporting Hindu backlash against Muslims, using state machinery. But the fact was that about 200 people that died in police and Army firing while executing shoot-at-sight orders, 95% were Hindus and total 27,000 Hindus arrested against 7500 Muslim arrest as preventive measures.

But trolls in media and intellectuals are not satisfied with the facts, they did their best to undermine tragedy of Godhra train burning, ignored hard facts which are available on public domain, and continued to attribute everything related to 2002 Gujarat riots to Hindu groups.

Godhra riots were consistently exploited by media trolls to earn credit points and to grab highest civil awards! Many Padmbhushan- Padmashri awards are distributed to professional media trolls!

Hindu bashing under the guise of Godhra riots took the trolling to new height and it lasted for about 12 years until most persecuted person after Godhra- Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister!

Profiles of trolling victims:- The TV channel which put direct question on trolling is facing allegations of tax fraud and Mr Sanjay Dutt, the owner of private security firm Quantum Securities has filed a writ petition against the channel along with separate complaints at Enforcement Directorate and Directorate General of Income Tax Investigation for allegedly committing tax manipulations and inflating share prices.

But you can’t ask the hard questions to this channel, as it will place you in the category of internet trolls. Whenever common man ask these trolling masters difficult questions, they used to play victimhood. They used to coin new terms to defend them and to refrain from answering real questions.

Same thing is happening with latest trolling victim- a lady journalist and TV anchor of same channel. No doubt, the language used against her, by social media users was highly objectionable and condemnable. But we can’t ignore the fact that, once India’s top most financial intelligence agency had recorded telephonic conversation of same lady journalist, while fixing ministerial portfolios along with famous corporate lobbyist. She was actually playing the role of power broker keeping aside journalistic ethics. Still she used to sermon India’s social, political and especially Hindutva movement about ethics and moral values! It’s ridiculous! But again, you can’t ask her about infamous Nira Radia tapes. As, if anyone ask her about it, she will start shouting day and night for so called character assassination, she will tell her audience, that she is being targeted for being female! She will claim victimhood instead of giving answer to common man!

Analyzing Jaitely’s ‘Ignore or Digest’ statement:- As we discussed the biggest trolling victim in India- RSS, has successfully employed ‘Ignore and Digest’ technique against most aggressive and obscene trolling campaigns in independent India, we can conclude that, trolling, even in most crude and aggressive form can’t break your resolve, commitment and dedication.

So, just ‘Ignore and Digest’ it!!!